Beyond Posing
Why looking like a yoga pose doesn't necessarily mean you're learning to move better.
You can make your body look like Tree Pose without changing a single movement habit that makes standing on one leg difficult.
Why? Because your body tends to choose the movement strategy it already knows—often the one that feels easiest or most efficient, even when it isn't the most effective.
Years of ingrained habits don't disappear just because you assume a new position. You can stretch, strengthen, and practice poses for years while relying on the same compensations that contribute to discomfort and limit how you move.
In my yoga classes, we go beyond the poses. We work on changing the underlying movement patterns. When you challenge a deeply ingrained, often unconscious movement pattern, new possibilities for moving and being in your body emerge.
Not many of us were ever taught how to do the most basic movements.
Can you:
Raise your arm overhead without pinching your shoulder?
Engage your core and pick something up without aggravating your back?
Twist without provoking that familiar discomfort around your low back or neck?
Take the stairs without complaints from your knees?
Walk without ending up unusually sore?
These aren't simply problems to stretch away or muscles to strengthen. And while receiving treatments passively can be crucial to our recovery and sets the stage to move differently, we often revert to the same patterns and return with the same issues. We must learn how to achieve the movement differently.
Years of repetitive, suboptimal movement choices can contribute to problems in our knees, hips, and backs, alongside injury and other factors. In fact, habitual patterns can set us up for the fall.
From reactivity to conscious choice
Yoga is the art and science of slowing down enough to notice our patterns, pause before repeating them, and choose differently.
Yoga takes us out of reactivity and into conscious choice. This is empowering. Our history and our injuries are there to guide us, not limitations, but invitations to greater awareness.
Pain is there to guide you. It's a feedback feature of our system, not a flaw. Sometimes, chronically painful areas quiet down remarkably quickly when we stop repeating the movement patterns that aggravate them.
In my skills-based yoga classes, we slow things down, pay attention to how your body organizes a movement, and experiment with different strategies. With practice and feedback, you can begin to replace familiar compensations with more effective, controlled, and comfortable options.
You might need to exhale rather than inhale when reaching for something. You might need to allow your feet and knees to turn out instead of forcing them parallel. You might need to slow down how quickly your back rounds and learn to hinge at your hips instead. Simple changes can yield profound results: more range, less pain, greater power.
Range of motion shouldn't come at the price of pain. The price should simply be paying attention, listening, and trying something that is initially unfamiliar and new.
Yoga is an opportunity to learn, not just perform.
You don't have to settle for simply being told what to do with your body. With guidance, you can make sense of the body’s many messages. You can learn to understand it for yourself.
My classes draw on yoga therapy, movement science, and decades of experience teaching people how to move better. You'll learn to recognize your habits, understand your options, and make adjustments that work for your body.
You don't have to be flexible, strong, or experienced. You don't have to keep up with anyone else. You do need to be curious and willing to explore.
Join me for skills-based yoga at Heartwood Center in Evanston.
Monday Yoga Therapy Clinic: For injuries and chronic conditions
Individualized sequences in an affordable, supportive group setting. Build the foundation for a safe practice.
Wednesday mornings: Gentle-Level 1
Accessible exploration of movement choices; progressive sequences with lots of time to recover.
Friday mornings: Yoga for Strength (Level 1–2)
Build strength, control, and coordination while developing skills that carry into everyday life.
Because there's a difference between posing like you know how to move and actually learning how.
